GENEVA, 9 December, 2024 – Last week, on the sidelines of the 23rd Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, we had the pleasure of organizing with TRIAL International, in partnership with Belgium, the DRC, Finland and Ukraine, an interactive discussion on international crimes affecting the environment with a special focus on two country situations: the DRC and Ukraine.
This was an opportunity to raise awareness about the environmental destruction and the consequences on local populations, and how current legal tools may be utilized to prosecute these crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Check out the key takeaways of our event:
- The environment is intrinsically linked to the enjoyment of human rights, and this has never been as salient as today. Issues linked to the protection of the environment are being debated in various international fora, including at the Human Rights Council, the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice.
- The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has launched consultations on a new policy initiative to advance accountability for environmental crimes under the Rome Statute. This new initiative aims to ensure that it takes a systematic approach when dealing with crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction committed by means of, or that result in, environmental damage by leveraging the existing legal framework. A first draft should be released shortly and further work including regional consultations will follow in early 2025.
- This is in line with what many experts advise for: the international community can rely on innovative interpretations of the Rome Statute and other existing legal frameworks to prosecute perpetrators of international crimes affecting the environment. It’s crucial to test the current framework and explore what can be achieved. This will help identify gaps and promote future amendments of the legal framework.
- By way of example, an attack on the environment, such as poisoning water supplies, could be considered as a genocide if a specific group is being targeted.
- Certain damage to the environment are irreversible and may have long-term consequences on local communities. For instance, certain toxic substances will remain permanently in the environment, exposing communities and threatening their health.
- In certain country situations affected by mega-mining projects for instance, the concentration of heavy metals in human systems exceeds 30 times the recommended limits, causing consequences on the normal development of children. In certain cases, children have 12 IQ points less than their peers living in non-affected communities. Further, in Ukraine, for safety reasons, lands heavily affected by environmental damage should no longer be used for agriculture unless a very long and costly decontamination process is implemented, affecting the livelihood of whole communities.
- The Chance case in the DRC is an interesting case study for prosecuting perpetrators of international crimes affecting the environment and promoting the rights of victims and survivors by awarding them meaningful reparations. In this case, challenges included accessing key regions due to security concerns and reassuring witnesses to encourage them to come forward. In addition, mobile courts experience proved to make this justice process more accessible to victims and survivors.
- Just like for all cases of gross human rights violations and international crimes, there is a need for swift access to comprehensive and multidisciplinary expertise: legal, scientific, open-source investigations, psychosocial support, gender specialists etc.
- It is important to promote an interdisciplinary, holistic and victim-centred approach when assessing the consequences of such crimes. By relying on a psychosocial approach, close attention is payed to understanding the interconnections between the environment and local communities and how their social fabric may be affected in the event that the environment suffers significant damage. Such approach to justice processes ensures that the harm caused to victims is fully assessed, therefore allowing to develop tailored solutions – including reparations – to each context and group of victims, thus avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” approach.